Automotive News Europe — 2024-10-30
Automotive Industry
Renault’s Ampere electric vehicle business unit will “explore the development” of a full-electric minicar for Nissan, potentially adding another model to the upcoming Renault Twingo platform after Volkswagen pulled out of a collaboration this year.
The Nissan model would be the second EV jointly produced and developed by the alliance partners. Starting in 2025, Ampere will build a full-electric successor to the Micra small car based on the Renault 5.
Ampere will also build a compact SUV for Mitsubishi, the third partner in the alliance. No additional details were given about the three models at a press event here on 30 October 2024, where Ampere offered a review of its operations one year after becoming a separate business unit.
Luca de Meo, Renault Group and Ampere CEO, said at the event that the positive experience of the Micra project gave Nissan the confidence to pursue a minicar on the same platform. “The Micra project is working very, very well,” he said. “We are on time and on cost.”
Nissan CEO sees boost from Twingo-based affordable EV
Nissan CEO Makato Uchida said an electric minicar could help the automaker increase its coverage of the European market. Speaking by video message at the Douai event, he said it would be sold at “an attractive and affordable” price.
“It represents the expansion of our cooperation into different vehicle segments,” Uchida said.
Nissan has said it will invest as much as €600 m in Ampere. Renault Group had hoped to list Ampere as a separate company through an initial public offering, but that plan was dropped at the end of 2023 because of unfavorable market conditions.
Mitsubishi has also said it will take a stake in Ampere but has not announced an amount.
Twingo EV to get retro styling
The next-generation Twingo, with retro-inspired styling that echoes the first-generation model from the 1990s, is expected to launch in early 2026 at a base price of less than €20,000.
It will be built at Renault’s factory in Novo Mesto, Slovenia. Until earlier this year, the plant produced the current Twingo that was developed in a partnership with Smart. The factory currently builds the Clio small car on a single assembly line.
The new Twingo will use a version of the AmpR Small platform, which underpins the Renault 5 and Renault 4 SUV. Renault targeted a two-year development time for the minicar after it was announced in fall 2023, a speed de Meo said is necessary to match Chinese competitors.
Some of the development work on the Twingo will be done with partners in China, Renault has said.
New Twingo to use low-cost lithium iron phospate batteries
The Twingo will have lower-cost lithium iron phosphate batteries rather than the nickel manganese cobalt used in the Renault 5. Ampere said on 30 October 2024 that it was able to adapt the platform to use the lithium iron phosphate batteries in 18 months.
De Meo has described the new Twingo as a “silver bullet for sustainable urban mobility,” and compared it with Japanese kei cars — urban runabouts with very small gasoline engines.
Renault has said it will have a monthly cost of less than €100 — without offering details — and “best-in-class” energy consumption of 10 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometers, which would be 50% better than current small EVs.
Renault and Volkswagen Group had been in talks to share development costs for the new Twingo, with VW getting its own version. However, talks broke down and each company will develop its own low-cost EVs.
Renault said in May it would work with a Chinese engineering company to develop the Twingo. “The development of the car will be done with a Chinese partner to improve our development lead time and costs,” a spokesperson said at the time.
It will also be a learning experience for Renault and Ampere. “The ambition of having such an integrated team there is to learn from the ecosystem on development processes and get the most of it both for Ampere and Renault Group teams,” Ampere said in the news release.
If Renault does develop a version of the Twingo for Nissan, it could help add volume to the Novo Mesto factory. A memorandum of understanding between Renault Group and the Slovenian government in July lists an annual capacity of 150,000 vehicles.